2020 – JULY 11 ISSUE: JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH PAINTING ACQUIRED BY NAT’L GALLERY OF ART

A 1992 painting by Corrales artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. The tall, mixed media painting “I See Red: Target” is part of Smith’s series about the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ trip to the Western Hemisphere. The piece is the first painting by a Native American artist to be acquired by the National Gallery of Art.

Smith has explained that the work is her response to this nation’s appropriation of indigenous imagery such as naming the Washington DC professional football team “The Redskins.”

In the museum, her piece is shown amid art by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Her paintings, prints and works in other media have been acquired for the permanent collections of many top galleries including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and, of course, the N.M. Museum of Art in Santa Fe and the Albuquerque Museum.

Her middle name was given by her Shoshone grandmother. She is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. She earned a masters degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1980. Her art has been exclusively represented by the Garth Greenan Gallery in New York City since 2017.